Brain Plague

ELEVEN

Less than a year to go before the great test of the Comb. The gods had manufactured the vector to Eleutherian specifications, and soon they would inoculate the root. The moment was critical; the worst time imaginable for a government crisis in Eleutheria. But here it was. Jonquil had fallen to the gravest scandal since Aster convened the Council.

"Jonquil," Aster demanded. "With all of our troubles, all the refugees to settle and the Comb to fix, how could you do this?"

"It's not against the law," flashed Jonquil.

"Everyone is shocked and disgusted." Aster's filaments emitted the most pungent molecules she could without awakening microglia.

"It's no one else's business."

"It concerns everyone. An elder trying to merge with children."

"Only temporarily."

"Corrupting the elders," flashed Aster. "Elders can't merge— even gods don't merge with children. It's the basis of civilization."

"True, but some of us have exotic taste."

"The Council won't stand for your taste. We've lost our majority; the government will collapse." As Aster had aged, she had gradually seen how people mirrored their own gods. The Lord of Light cared for law and policy, and his people pursued these. But the God of Mercy cared for ideas of any sort, of all colors on the palette. And so Eleutherian pursued new ideas and inventions, their most creative period of history—and their most chaotic politically.

Now Aster faced a vote of no confidence in the Council, throwing out herself and Jonquil. Half the members of her own party had deserted; she would lose by two votes. Who would govern? Who else had the experience, and the trust of the god?

Rose approached her. "My condolences, Comrade." Her new radical party, the Friends of Enlightenment, had actually won two seats on the Council.

"Never mind," flashed Aster shortly. "We'll regroup."

"I'm sure you will, indeed. I'm sure you'll overcome your comrade's latest descent into degeneracy."

"What do you want, Rose?" Rose was too political to offer mere sympathy.

"Not what I want, but what I can deliver. The votes of the two members of my party, to join yours in coalition."

"The Friends of Enlightenment? Join us in coalition?" Aster emitted molecules of repulsion. She had never thought that Rose could attract more than a handful of foolish elders to her masters' ideology. But now she had a party in power.

"Are we so bad?" asked Rose. "What do we stand for—'The Good of the People.' A knight and a bishop move differently, yet they share the same end."

"Ends do not justify means."

"No," agreed Rose, emitting disdain. "Means justify ends, in your degenerate society. That will be your undoing. But the endgame is far off; and for now, to regain your advantage, you'll have to promote a pawn."

The roots of the Comb spread gradually wider through each level they penetrated. At the seventeenth level down, the roots housed a shopping center frequented by middle-class simians and university students. This was the level Selenite chose to inject the virus containing all the instructions the micros had programmed.

Within the root, arterial tubes carried growth materials upward, while venous tubes carried waste down. To reach an arterial tube, the maintenance crew crossed through the stores. Chrys passed counters stacked high with designer nanotex, lawyers in gem-swirling talars trying out Solarian perfumes, youngsters gaping at servo cats, dragons, unicorns, and caterpillars. One little boy crouched on the floor, reverently petting a servo kitten. For a moment she froze, seeing the stray cat in the Underworld, and the stray kids playing stickball. Maybe it wasn't another cat she needed for Merope. If her micros could pick up homeless children, why couldn't she?

Jasper and a couple of other members of the Board followed, along with half a dozen sentient engineers of diverse size and shape. A snake-egg or two hovered; Chrys eyed them warily, hoping this event would not interest the press.

The virus containing the correction program floated inside a pod of silicone. A servo arm lifted the pod and pressed it to the intake port of the root's arterial tube, to carry the infection upward and outward to all the interstices of the Comb. As the virus multiplied, its progeny would bear its memory molecules to the correct address in each cell of the building, patching the program to shift their growth by an infinitesimal amount—just enough to realign the overall growth to its proper path.

The snake-eggs hovered near Selenite. "Is it true that the Comb is splitting in three?"

"And you are attempting a desperate corrective measure?" "Are you actually using Titan's original brain enhancers?" To evade the snake-eggs, Chrys stepped back out the doorway into the jewelry department, where she pretended to admire a display of fine namestones. But the snake-eggs followed. "You are the dynatect's protege," insisted one, hovering at eye level.

"I'm no dynatect," muttered Chrys. "I'm just a carrier." "An artist," said another. "Dynatects have often been painters and sculptors. You carry on that tradition."

"When is your next show?"

Chrys looked up. Her show could use publicity, especially without the Seven helping out. "The fifteenth of next month, at the Fifth Street Gallery, second level."

"And what do you paint?"

"Pyroscape." She took a breath. "I do portraits too. Portraits of micro people."

"Micro people? I don't believe our database includes that ethnic group."

"Brain enhancers. You'll see what they really look like."

That evening, her studio was spread across the news, including the portraits of Fern and of Opal's favorite. Immediately after came the latest abduction of hapless spacefarers, three that week alone. As if the masters didn't have enough addicts to lure out to their Slave World.

Chrys was appalled. She called Opal. "I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have talked to them—I had no idea how it would come out."

Opal smiled thoughtfully. "I wonder what people will make of it. Seeing our micros, scaled to human size."

She wondered. She could not guess what the Seven would think—if they even came to her show.

In the morning Xenon had unpleasant news. "I did not wish to wake you, Chrysoberyl, but late last night, I regret to say, I was vandalized."

Outside, the two caryatids holding up the balcony had their eyes gouged out. A laser had streaked across each, leaving in each nanoplastic face a blackened valley of death.

Chrys stared, feeling the numbness sink to her toes. Ever since she first heard of brain enhancers, death had stalked her. All her hard work could come to nothing, as it had for Titan.

"I should have fixed the caryatids right away," Xenon apologized, "but I wanted to leave the evidence."

"What does it matter?" Chrys asked dully. "They'll never find who did it."

"Oh, but I saw exactly who did it." The vandals' image flashed into her eyeballs. Two young men from a Great House, up the street from Garnet. The taller one had a loutish look about him, rather like her elder brother before he left home to raise his own goats and sons on the next mountain.

Andra appeared in her window. "It's a hate crime," the lawyer assured her. "An open-and-shut case."

"So we get them for defacing caryatids." While murder went unpunished.

"The boys have no previous record," Andra said. "Their father wants to settle for ten thousand credits, to keep their record clean."

"Why should we settle? Teach them a lesson."

"For a first offense, they'd get off with a warning. I'm not sure what lesson they'll learn—except to avoid getting caught."

Chrys thought it over. "Let me talk with the father."

The father's sprite wore a breastplate of lapis and jade. "My deepest apologies. A new neighbor, too; why haven't we been acquainted? You must call on us." He waved his hand, full of jeweled rings. "It was their homecoming night, you understand; all the excitement. But I've lectured them most severely and deactivated their Elysian pass for a week. I trust you'll accept our compensation."

Chrys cleared her throat. "If you don't mind, my lord, may I suggest a more useful alternative? Let the boys spend a few hours serving at the Spirit Table. Get to know their neighbors."

"An excellent idea! If it weren't for headball season; the team takes up every minute." He sighed and shook his head. "Besides, the tube stop, you know—we wouldn't want them to pick up"—he whispered—"diseases."

"Very well," said Chrys abruptly. "I'll accept your offer."

The lord waved his hand. "It's done." In Chrys's eyes, a digit increased by one.

"Since your boys have no time for charity," she added, "I'll donate the sum, in their name, to the Simian Advancement League."

His faced turned dark as his namestones before his sprite vanished.

That afternoon, Chrys took a trans-world call. To her amazement, there stood her younger brother, his face pink and his arms tan. His eyes glowed.

"Hal," she breathed.

The boy waved. "I can see you!"

She smiled. "I see you too."

"An angel visited our hill," he rushed on. "The angel brought health to all the children of the village."

From behind, her mother put her arm around his shoulder. "A very special angel. An angel of the Spirit, who always knows our need."

Chrys swallowed, her eyes too full to speak. What did the mountain people need more—their health, or their pride in their own belief? For years her mother's pride had wrestled with her own. They were one, and yet they were estranged. Chrys could reach back and help them, yet she could never go back home.